


Mad Geniuses and Really Smart Sane People

by amalnahurriyeh



Category: Sherlock (TV), The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Caseyverse, Character of Color, F/F, For Science!, Gen, M/M, Original Character(s), Post-Reichenbach, homemade fireworks are a great idea, ladies doing science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amalnahurriyeh/pseuds/amalnahurriyeh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock spend some time in Stark, Montana, saving the world from aliens.  It's mostly not boring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad Geniuses and Really Smart Sane People

**Author's Note:**

> This is based in the [Caseyverse](http://amalnahurriyeh.livejournal.com/tag/caseyverse) (link to tag on my LJ), which is the universe that follows on from my X-Files long fic, which is [here](http://amalnahurriyeh.livejournal.com/34507.html). You don't need to know anything about the X-Files, really, to follow this, and almost no canonical XF characters appear in this story (Monica Reyes and John Doggett are canonical characters, but they are substantially transformed from canon, and Fox Mulder and a few others have off-screen cameos). The basic plot is that there's gonna be an alien apocalypse on December 21, 2012, and that there's a secret underground bunker in Montana where Our Heroes are developing a plan to fight it. It's a bunch of awesome ladies doing science and blowing shit up. 
> 
> If you enjoy the Caseyverse, there are LOTS of stories about the many, many original characters who populate it. [This one](http://amalnahurriyeh.livejournal.com/67019.html) features two of the major characters from this story, Jamila and Isabel, prominently. There are about a million about Casey, but 100% of them are spoilery for the original fic, so maybe read that one first.
> 
> Thanks to Maybe_Amanda on LJ for the beta, and to all the UK-residents on my various reading lists for helping me out with the Bonfire Night bit.

Title: Mad Geniuses and Really Smart Sane People  
Summary: John and Sherlock spend some time in Stark, Montana, saving the world from aliens. It's mostly not boring. 

Key tags: FOR SCIENCE

 

"This is actually not possible."

"I hear you, Mon, but I'm pretty sure we're edging up on Princess Bride territory."  John crossed his arms.

Monica adjusted the camera to get a better shot of the figure walking through the woods towards the compound.  "Is there any chance it's a random backpacker?"

"Never seen a backpacker in an ankle-length wool coat before."  John scratched his head.  "Hey, Ramón, play the bear noises again."

Ramón played the recorded bear noises that they'd set up in the trees, to discourage anybody getting close enough to the clearing to realise that this wasn't just a hole in the forest.

The figure on the screen stopped, listened, and--

"Did he just _roll his eyes_?" Monica's gesture managed to convey all the relevant 'what the fuck.'

The interloper crossed into the clearing.

"Goddamn it.  OK, John, what do we do if he finds us?"

"I don't think it's an if."  John pointed at the screen.  The figure had surveyed the clearing, and was making a beeline for the rock face that wasn't a rock face at all.  "Are we 100% sure it's not a referral?  Because this guy is acting like he knows exactly where he's going."

"Not any referral I know about."  Monica shook her head.  "OK, I think you guys have to go play army men or something."

"Yeah," John said.  "Jen, Bruce, you're with me.  Bruce and I will take the tasers, Jen's got live ammo.  Immobilize first.  Got it?"

His Marines fell into line behind him.  Monica watched on the screen as the figure in the long coat walked up to the rock face.  He or she examined it closely for a minute, and then--

She cleared her throat.  "MGR-1807 to JJD-4587," she said into her phone.  "John, that motherfucker just _knocked._ "

"This is officially weirder than the day Isabel exploded the third lab," John said back.  He went up to the door, and checked to make sure that his back up was in proper formation. Drawing his weapon, he took a deep breath and opened the door.

The amorphous figure on the security cameras turned out to be a tall man with absurd curly hair, wearing a ground-skimming black coat, who was staring intently at his phone.  "Ah, good," he said in a deep voice.  John wasn't good with accents, but the guy sounded like something off Masterpiece Theater.  He hadn't thought real English people sounded like that. "It's become a bit chilly out here.  Is there somewhere I can plug in my mobile?"  He glanced up.  "Oh, weapons, really?  Tedious.  Must I raise my hands?"

John blinked.  "It would be am excellent sign of good faith at this point."

The man locked his phone with a simple gesture and then held up his hands in a way that managed to convey incredibly judgmental boredom.  "If you insist."

***

"No, you're going to have to say it again," Monica said.  She was on good cop duty--she had _always_ been on good cop duty--but she really wanted to punch this guy in the face. 

The man, who said his name was Sherlock Holmes, threw his head back and made a disgusted noise.  "You know, I thought it was impossible that there were law enforcement officials less competent than those at Scotland Yard, but, clearly, you Americans strive to achieve excellence in all things."

"Soy mexicana," she snapped. which she really shouldn't have done.

He glanced up at her with a sudden look of intrigue on his face.  "Todavia algo," he said, with a disgustingly castellano accent.

"You are going," she said, as patiently as she could, "to explain how you knew we were here, and then why you showed up here.  And then what you want.  You are going to use small words, because you apparently think I am an idiot.  And then I am going to decide whether he--" and here she nodded to John, who was doing his best to look like a killer, and not a bureaucrat-- "gets to drag you out back and shoot you, or whether we try something more civilized.  Is that acceptable to you, Mr. Holmes?"

He sighed dramatically, again, and gazed up at the ceiling.  "For reasons which are not pertinent at this juncture, I was tracing a covert international criminal organization.  As I uncovered its work, I also became aware of a truly immense project of money laundering, identity creation, and false infrastructure.  Global, but, as far as I could tell, did not take any outwardly directed action  A small number of people, highly skilled in obscure fields, disappeared from the public eye, but they all maintained contact with their families, and behaved in a manner consistent with voluntary departure.  Money appeared out of nowhere, but was largely spent in legitimate places.  You have a massive global criminal operation underway, and yet you appear to be doing nothing with it."  He tilted his head.  "I had reached a cul-de-sac with my own work; my options were either to kill a large number of people, which I think we can all agree is suboptimal, or to seed clues for relevant law enforcement entities to find.  That process is slow and tedious, and must be monitored.  In the meantime, I am extremely interested in determining exactly what sort of non-crime you are committing, why it requires quite so much heavy armament, why two people who are so very obviously law enforcement officials are running it, and why you are under a mountain in what, I am sorry to say, is the absolute worst place I have ever been, and I saved a woman's life in Karachi once so I'm not merely generalizing from one bad trip to Belgium."  He blinked and shifted to look her in the eye.  "You might find her useful, if she's still locatable.  I could check."

Monica leaned back and folded her arms.  "OK.  We need to check out your story and your background before we make any determinations about what to tell you."

He rolled his eyes.  "There's a fact that will undoubtedly confuse you."

"And what's that."

"I committed suicide two months ago."

Just when things had started making sense.

***

It took longer than usual for the call to connect, probably because she wasn't in the communications lab.  "Sadie, no, Daddy needs to--Monica, are you there?  Dammit, the stupid wire is--you will survive without chocolate milk for ten whole minutes, Cassandra."

"Hi, Mulder," she said, trying not to sound too amused.

"So, new recruit or something?"

"Remember that minor British government official you were convinced had something going on last month?"

"Yeah, that Holmes dude.  What, someone connected to him wants in?"

"Today, his younger brother walked up to the compound and knocked on the door.  Not metaphorically.  With his actual hand on the actual door."

There was a slight pause.  "His brother's _dead._ "

"Apparently he dies as successfully as you do," she snarked.  After you've given someone's pregnant girlfriend tissues at his funeral you are pretty much allowed to be an asshole to him on the subject in the future.  Even if it wasn't his fault.

She could hear Mulder drumming his fingers on something.  "OK.  What's your vibe?"

"Guy is totally self-interested, not at all part of a larger network.  He's not ideologically committed to the alien bug problem, and he's got another thing going--some criminal conspiracy he's tracking--but he's open and upfront about it and uninterested in deception, and legitimately wants to know what's going on here.  He's obviously brilliant and likes showing off.  From what I can tell from his google trail he's got meticulous laboratory skills, a penchant for blowing things up, and a tendency to end up in the middle of totally crazy bullshit.  I think he's one of us."

The drumming fingers again.  "Keep him away from comms until you're sure."

"We need to consult the others?"

"Give him to Isabel and Matt.  Either they'll eat him alive or he'll turn out to be great."

"Got it," she said.  "Go give your daughter chocolate milk.  She might _die_."

When she walked back into the room, Sherlock looked up and surveyed her quickly.  "You don't trust me, but you've decided to bring me into the project in a limited capacity.  Once I've proven trustworthy I'll be allowed informational access.  You have conditions, which is fine, as I have several as well."

She sat down across from him.  "What are yours?"

"First, I need to be allowed to continue to track Moriarty's organization--the one I was working on when I found you."

"You don't get to communicate freely with the outside world yet," she said, shaking her head.

"We can negotiate how this will be implemented.  I'm content with observing and tracing only for the moment.  My second condition, however, is non-negotiable."

"And what's that?"

The first human look she'd seen from him all day crossed his face.  "There's someone you need to bring here."

***

"Doctor Watson," a voice called out to him from the corner.

John turned around slowly.  Ah, a lovely woman standing next to a black sedan.  She was a bit older than usual, but absolutely the type. He wondered what the recruiting criteria were like in Mycroft's office, and whether they included measurements.  "Well, I haven't been properly kidnapped for tea in a while," he said resignedly, and climbed in.

She followed him, and typed something into her phone.  Yeah, she fit the mould.

He wasn't--well.  He wasn't as observant as he should be, these days.  He missed things.  Sitting in Mycroft's cars always made him miss things, now, because of the time he was in one with a blood soaked scarf clutched in his fingers and nothing but white noise in his head.  So it took him a while to notice that his small travel bag was packed and sitting at his feet.  "Am I going somewhere?"

The woman put away her phone, which he thought was unusual.  "Your appointment today will require a spot of international travel, I'm afraid.  Don't worry, your passport's all taken care of."

"Why doesn't that surprise me," he said, and leaned back.  He wondered if Mycroft was abducting him to the family manor in France.  There was a picture he'd seen once, green mown grass, a pirate hat sliding off unruly hair, a little six year old scowl--

No.  He wasn't going to think about that.

At the airport, he followed her without complaint into the private jet.  No stewardesses; shame , he could use a drink right now.  He could use a large number of drinks, but he was trying to avoid confronting that fact.

It was another hour until he looked out the window and saw, really _saw_ , what was going wrong.  "We're flying west," he said.

"Yes," said the woman, who was going through a stack of paperwork with a highlighter.

"We've been in the air too long and are flying too high to be going to Ireland," he said, thoughtfully.  "Iceland's possible, but no, not north enough."  He glanced around at the surroundings.  This plane looked work-a-day, with no touches of opulence.  He hadn't been offered tea.  "You don't work for Mycroft Holmes, do you." He didn't bother to make it a question.

"No, I do not," she said, flipping to another file.

He nodded to himself.  "Any chance you happen to work for Irene Adler?"

The woman's forehead crinkled.  "There's an answer I'm supposed to give if you ask that."  She reached for her phone and clicked a number of times.  "Here it is.  'Excellent deduction, though entirely false.'"

For a moment he was sure he'd been insulted from beyond the grave.  Whose grave, he was less sure. John looked out over the stretch of the Atlantic beneath him.  Nothing he could do at cruising altitude, anyway.

***

As they landed,  in what he guessed from the aerial view was Washington DC, the woman reached across and put handcuffs on him, but did not latch them very tightly.  He'd have to dislocate his thumb, but not snap it.  "These are a bit of theatre," she said conspiratorially.  "Easiest way to get you into the country was a prisoner transfer.  Your American contact will take you from here.  I'll just get your bag."

John thought about whether there was some way to get out of this.  But Moriarty was dead on a rooftop, and there was nothing for him to come home to, so he might as well--just go. It'll come when it comes; no point anticipating a threat.  He stood, poorly handcuffed, and followed the woman out the door.

A black man was standing at the base of the steps.  "Nice to meet you, Superintendant Greene."

"And you, Agent Drummy," she said, shaking hands.  "Though I'm a bit disappointed you're alone."

"He sends his regrets, I'm sure," Drummy said, obviously lying.  John wished he was still curious enough to care what about.

"Well then.  I'm off."  She turned and smiled at John.  "Have a good trip, Doctor Watson.  Always was a fan."

"Have we met before?" He didn't recall her, but that was no promise of anything these days.

"Fan of the blog," she said brightly, as if that wasn't a terrible fucking thing to say.  "Friend of Greg's as well.  And, shall we say, a bit of a believer."  She winked.

He followed the American to a car, his hollow head echoing.

Two more changes of custody, and someone was pulling a hood over his head before he got into a helicopter.  "I'm sorry, Doctor," the young woman who did it said.  "I hope it doesn't bother you.  It's just a security precaution.  If, um, there's some reason you can't--"

Great, whoever was kidnapping him this time had his psych records.  "It'll be fine."

The helicopter ride was short, and then he was led out of it, through a door (wide space, high ceilings, three metal detectors--storage? warehouse?) and then into a lift, always with two hands on him to guide him.  "Doctor Watson.  We're glad to have you," said a voice--male, in his fifties, American accent, from the south if his memories from the Marines he knew are anything to go by--and he sounded quite like a Marine, actually, though he couldn't place why.

"I feel so welcomed," he said, and tried not to feel like a ghost was telling him to.

The lift went down a hundred feet at least before it stopped. He followed the hands directing him down a long corridor, passing doors on left and right, mostly closed.  Stopping and entering one.  Someone was in it already, he could hear them breathing.   "Are you sure you want to do it like this?" asked the man who had addressed him by name.

Whatever response came wasn't verbal.

"Alright.  Have it your way," said the man.  "Doctor Watson, if you'll just sit right here."  He directed him to a metal seat, in front of table.  Interrogation room, then, but they didn't secure him more, just left the hood and handcuffs on, still too loose. The breathing was coming from the other side of the table, and it was calm, almost too calm.  He heard the door to the room close, and then he was alone with whoever is breathing.

Hands against the bottom of the hood, pulling it off his face.  He blinked into the light, not able to focus.  When he did, his mind ground to a sudden halt.

Sherlock was sitting across from him.

There was a long pause where he was convinced that this entire thing had been a metaphorical passage into the afterlife devised by his brain after he'd been hit by a car crossing the street.  He had no idea his subconscious was this creative.

"Hello, John," said Sherlock, and his voice was tense and melodious and absolfuckinglutely real.

"Fuck."  John said.

Sherlock smiled.

"Oh, shit.   _Sherlock._ "  He dropped his head to his hands.  "Oh my bloody buggering fuck."

"I know," Sherlock said.

"You--"  He looked up.  He didn't know anything anymore.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry.  You had to believe it.  You of all people had to be certain I was dead.  Or you would have been."

"I thought I was," John said, and pressed his hand over his mouth, because he didn't mean to say that.

Sherlock's face stilled, and his eyes were suddenly full of something John understood, but couldn't name.  "Please don't be.  I think it would be inconvenient if we were not in the same state of being."

John caught his breath.  "You absolute fucking _wanker._."

Sherlock sighed.

John lifted his cuffed hands toward where Sherlock's were sitting on the table.  Almost afraid, he reached out and brushed his fingers against the back of Sherlock's hand.  It was warm, and the veins under his fingers pulsed, slightly. As he touched, Sherlock turned his hand over, palm up, and brought his other over to rest on top.  John blinked, knowing there were tears on his cheeks, but was surprised to glance up and see them mirrored on Sherlock's face. Their fingers tightened together.

Abruptly, Sherlock turned over his shoulder and yelled at the one-way glass behind him.  "Come unlock his hands.  This instant.  He's no threat."

After a moment, a woman with dark hair came in, her face set in a deliberately pleasant and empty mask.  "Hello, John.  I'm Monica."  She unlocked and removed his handcuffs.  He added his second hand to the pile on the table and nodded, not precisely trusting his voice.

"Technically, you're still free to leave," she said calmly.  "But if you want to remain here, we need to start taking steps.  It's about 20 hours since you were picked up."

He cleared his throat.  Sherlock was still holding his hands in place.  "Where is here?"

She shook her head.  "I can't tell you anything--literally anything--until I know if you're staying."

He looked over at Sherlock.  He was avoiding his eyes, staring at their interlaced hands.  "I'll be here as long as he's here."

She nodded, and opened up a folder.  "We need to concoct a plausible reason for your long-term absence from home. How long do we have before your sister reports you missing?"

He rolled his eyes.  "Six months.  No, Mrs. Hudson, the landlady.  Or Mycroft, he's--"

"You're not permitted any contact with Mycroft Holmes for the duration of your involvement in the project," she said swiftly.

He blinked.  "Well, that's a relief."

Sherlock snorted.

"What kind of cover do you need for your landlady?"

John thought for a minute, brain moving sluggishly, half his consciousness focused on the press of Sherlock's hands around his.  "What time is it in London now?"

"About eight thirty in the morning," Monica said, just as Sherlock said "Eight twenty seven, roughly."

"Right.  Give me a phone, I'll handle it."

Monica handed him the iPhone from her pocket, already dialing Mrs. Hudson's number.  He held it up to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Mrs Hudson, it's John," he said, and he didn't have to work to make his voice shake a little.

"Oh, John, I've been wondering where you were.  I didn't hear you come home last night."  She didn't say _I'm worried_ , because they don't talk about that.

"I didn't," he said, and managed a rough little laugh.  "I'm sorry.  I think I've--well.  I think I'm going to bugger off for a while."

"John," she said, her concern pouring over the line.

He closed his eyes and focused on Sherlock's hand.  "You needn't worry about me," he said.  "Really.  I'm not--you don't need to be worried. About that.  I just need to be--somewhere else.  You understand."

"Of course, dear."

He thought of the possible flaw in his plan. "Er, about the rent--"

"Don't worry, dear.  I'll just bother Mycroft about it.  Comes to it, I'll take his offer.  You take all the time you need."

"Thank you," he said, and meant it.

"Now, do you need me to send you any of your things?"

"No, I've--" He swallowed.  "I've got what I need with me."

Sherlock's hand tightened on his.

"All right then, love.  Do check in every now and again."

"I will," he said.  "Good bye, Mrs. Hudson." He hung up and handed the phone back to Monica.

"What was Mycroft's offer?" Sherlock asked.

John closed his eyes and focused on the hands holding his.  "I had a rent cheque returned.  He offered to buy the house."

Sherlock huffed.  "Typical."

There was a bright knock on the door, and a tallish man with ginger hair and a beard strolled in. "Is my timing okay?"

"Fine," Monica said. "Do your thing.  I'm doing paperwork at this point." She had her phone on the table and was typing on a keyboard she had unfolded.

The ginger man pulled over a chair and sat across from Monica.  "Great.  So, I'm Matt.  I'm Sherlock's boss."

"He persists in calling himself that," Sherlock said huffily.

"I'm the person who has the keys to the chemical supply cabinet and tells him no a lot," Matt amended.  "I would say I keep him on task, but."  He made a gesture communicating the futile nature of the endeavour.

"Yeah, makes sense," John said.  Despite the abundant surreality, he was starting to feel like he was absorbing information for the first time in months.

"So, there are a couple of places we could use you," Matt explained.  "Largely we're doing basic virology research, and a lot of testing of application methods.  I don't know how much biochemistry you know--"

"Barely adequate," Sherlock huffed.  "I don't even know why you're talking to him.  He should be working with Wrong John."

"Wrong John?" John raised his eyebrows.

"Military commander. The one who brought you in." He turned back to Matt.  "He'll be best used in tactics and in disaster scenarios, if you're working on those yet.  Also, he'll be good for testing those secret weapons I'm not meant to know about."

"Yet again, Sherlock, I'm not talking to you about the space lasers."

"But it's patently obvious that-"

John interrupted.  "Wait, we're going to come back to that bit, because I want to hear about the space lasers, but _Wrong John_?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I had to distinguish him.  It became confusing when I was talking to you."

"I've been," John said deliberately, "on a different continent."

"Not my fault," Sherlock said, but he dug his fingers in tighter.

John couldn't help it.  He burst out in a fit of giggles.

Sherlock followed.

***

Monica walked out to go get John's security badge.  "They're nuts," she said to Wrong John as she passed him in the hall.  "They're holding hands and _crying._. While laughing and taking about space lasers."

"They'll fit right in," John said.

"They want to share a unit," she called back.  "Incidentally, one bedroom. Right John was very clear on that."

"Please don't call him that," Wrong John said, and went into the interrogation room.

***

John was a little surprised to find that Sherlock didn't have any things in their quarters.  Monica clarified that this was because Sherlock was being kept in solitary confinement when he wasn't working, to prevent him becoming a security threat.

Ten minutes later, John was sitting next to him in the holding cell, two levels down.

The next morning, they both relocated to their new quarters.  Sherlock even got a phone.

***

John pulled off his ear protectors. "It's pulling right."

"Fuck," Isabel said, shaking her head and picking up her cup of coffee. "I thought we'd fixed that in the last round."

"Not your fault," he said. He put the rifle down on the table and started to disassemble it. "Can I ask why we aren't just using off-the-shelf weapons? It's not easy, tooling a rifle barrel like that."

"Because if you shoot our bullets out of a regular rifle barrel for more than about ten minutes, the thing dissolves into a pile of acid and fumes. It's pretty cool to watch, but not so good for bug-swatting."

John cracked his neck and put the second of the test barrels into position. He was just barely getting used to the idea that there was going to be an alien invasion in seven months time; the fact that he was precision-testing bullets coated with what they insisted on calling "bug spray" (Sherlock and that desi woman whose name was not Jazeera had drawn him a diagram of it, and he was fairly sure he retroactively failed orgo in the process) in custom-tooled titanium-coated rifle barrels was so bizarre that he was just pretending it all made sense and proceeding from there. "Could you change the way the bullets are constructed? Sorry, I know this is probably obvious. It's just, I've seen what happens when barrels go faulty." 

"No, that's the issue; we have to deal with a whole chain of chemical relations when the bullets penetrate, so we need immediate contact." She shook her head and reached for her ear protectors. "Let's give this one a shot." 

He followed suit, and switched to stand in front of the second target. This barrel felt better than the other as he swung the gun into position and steadied it. He blinked and fired, testing the recoil, watching to see if there were minute flaws in the way the stock pressed into his shoulder, if his hands couldn't counter the shift and roll. This one was better, he could tell without even looking at the target (although he did, and he'd shredded the bulls-eye, not bad for an invalid), and he turned to tell Isabel this, uncovering his ears. But he stopped, because Sherlock was watching from the other side of the bulletproof glass that separated the shooting gallery from the rest of the munitions storage level. He was unnaturally still, his eyes open wide and unblinking, and his lips were slightly parted. As John watched him, he actually raised one knuckle to his mouth and _bit it._

Isabel glanced back over her shoulder to see what he was staring at. "Oh, for fuck's sake," she said, and turned back to him, grinning. "Seriously?"

John cleared his throat and set the gun down on the table. He glanced up and saw Sherlock's expression turn almost pained with arousal. "Let's just say it's very useful I was not aware of this back when I had to shoot people in front of him on a regular basis." 

"I seriously am at Danger Junkie Reform Camp, aren't I," Isabel said, shaking her head. "You know, my coffee's cold. Should I spill it on you so you have to do the next round shirtless? Because I am a hell of a wingwoman." 

"Please don't," John said, picking up the reassembled weapon. "I have enough laundry to do as it stands. Besides," and he turned back to face the next target, "we really don't need the help."

***

"Um, guys?"

"What's up, Ramón?" Wrong John said.  He and Right John (it had stuck) and the rest of the security staff were having a strategy meeting, and Monica was eating popcorn and half-participating.

"Sherlock and the new girl are fighting in the gym."

"Bloody hell," John said.  "What did he say to her?"  He stood to go break it up.

"No, I mean, they're..." He waved his hands.  "Sparring? Having a ninja-off?  I don't know, it's terrifying.  And really hot."

John paused.  He glanced back at Wrong John and Monica.

"I think we have to go check it out," Monica said with a straight face.  "For science."

"This is a bad sign," Wrong John muttered to himself, alone at his strategy meeting.  He appropriated the bowl of popcorn.

***

"--obviously a member of the international relations staff, from the ink on your left palm, smeared from you passing the pen to it when in the middle of a translation, you prefer to work longhand--"  Sherlock ducked the left hook and spun behind his partner, reaching to grab her around the waist.  She kicked him easily in the hip without looking, turning as she did, aiming her elbow toward where his shoulder would be.  He dropped to the ground and rolled towards her, knocking her backwards, and kept going under her falling body.  "Nevertheless," he continued, "you have a high level of technical competence, clothes smell of ozone, you spent time today in the server tower.  Personally, a loner but one who socializes willingly."

"That's an oxymoron," she said, springing back up to her feet, and wiped the blood off her mouth from where she'd bitten herself.

"Common, for all that." He was already moving by the time she kicked again, grabbing for her leg.  She switched trajectories mid kick and caught his rib cage, flipping him over.  "Product of a traumatic childhood.  From your reactions to challenge and threat, no physical violence."  He managed to get back on his feet while she was still circling.  His cheek was split open and his right eye was swelling shut.  "Based on your extremely adolescent performance of pique, I'm going to say emotionally unavailable mother."

"Oh, yes," Casey said, hunkering her shoulders down.  "Talking shit on somebody's mama is exactly how to get them to be less interested in killing you barehanded."

Sherlock charged her.  There were whispered cheers in the gathered crowd.  "This is better than NASCAR," Isabel said from her position on the exercise bike, where she was eviscerating a cherry pie with a spoon.  "This is better than _wrestling_."

"As a medical professional, I am a little concerned," John said, raising his voice to make sure he could be heard over the punches.

"I'm fine, John."  Sherlock took another kick to the shoulder and grabbed for Casey's knee. She kept rotating so he missed.

"I promise not to break your boyfriend too much," Casey said, doing some kind of move that ended up with her back to Sherlock's stomach and her elbow in his solar plexus. He doubled up and staggered back.  She turned again, and this time the weight of her shoulder connected with his sternum.  In what looked very much like a rugby tackle, she had him down, and smoothly mimed pulling a gun from a hip holster and pressing it to his temple.

Sherlock looked put out.  "Firearms are cheating."

"So was the hair pulling."  She kneeled up and climbed off him.

There was a smattering of applause.

John walked over.  "Anything in need of treatment?" he asked Casey first, since Sherlock was gasping dramatically, and he didn't intend to reward this kind of behavior.

She checked her jaw with her fingers.   "I'll let you know if the ribs turn out to be anything."  She glanced down at her knuckles.  "Fuck, fight bite.  Antibiotics?"  She held them out to display.

He checked the cuts on her hands.  "Not if you clean and bandage them in the next half an hour or so.  Topical stuff should be enough.  Stick to NSAIDs for pain, come see me if it's not resolving."

"You sound just like my mom," she said, cracking her neck.

"Why," Sherlock asked from the floor, "is the world full of lesbians who want to hit me?"

"I'm sure if you think about that a little the answer will come to you," Casey said as she strolled out of the room, nudging up against a very distracted Monica in a casually calculated manner in the process.

Sherlock made a disgruntled noise, and John crouched to check his injuries.

***

"Do you want to come moon watching with us?" Jamila asked as she made her second peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich.  "We're going up in a bit."

"Why?" Sherlock asked.  He had become fixated on some kind of canned pasta dish that Ismail had introduced him to, and was having it for his seventh consecutive meal.  John reminded himself that at least he was eating.

"It's a Ramadan thing," she explained.  "One of the nights, Lailat al Qadr, it's not a preset date within Ramadan.  You have to watch the moon to figure out which night it's on."

"That's incredibly stupid," Sherlock said.

John nearly dropped his fork.  Jamila's face was unnaturally still; it was a look he still associated with Molly Hooper immediately after Sherlock said something awful to her.  "Sherlock," he growled.

Sherlock looked up from his bowl and looked between them in confusion for a moment.  "Oh, you think this is Islamophobia.  No, not at all.  All religious practices are incredibly stupid, patterns made up by humans who refuse to observe.  In the global comparative scheme Islam is actually one of the better thought out ones, a great deal more logically rigorous.  At any rate, people do stupid things all the time and they seem to enjoy them.  John likes astronomy.  Of course we'll come.  You can explain the theory behind it." He turned to John.  "Was that better?"

He glanced at Jamila, who seemed unsure whether to be further offended or burst out laughing.  "Points for effort.  We'd love to join you, Jamila.  Are there any more dates around?"

***

Sherlock had made himself a terrible cup of tea (he hated when John was at work, it always resulted in terrible tea and other forms of chaos) and was about to see if the mass spectrometer had produced any interesting results when he walked into a cloud of tobacco smoke. He froze, and took a long sniff. Morleys: only one smoker, but at least four cigarettes in a three hour period, possibly more, not smoked rapidly but allowed to burn down for long periods in an ash tray. He whipped his head around to the lab from which the smoke was wafting. That Casey woman was sitting in front of a computer, her eyes unfocused, cigarette hanging loosely between her fingers. He told himself it was the smell that drew him in further, the chance for a bit of second-hand nicotine, and not at all that he knew that look on her face, and that it meant something was _interesting._

She glanced up at him, and smiled like a shark. "Want one?"

"I quit," he said, and took a sip of his tea to stop from saying _oh god yes please._

"Quitting's great," she said, taking a long pull. "Wonderful. I've quit like, ten times. It's awesome."

He swallowed. "I'll leave you to it." He didn't move from the door frame. 

She turned back to the screen. "How are you with Ruby?"

He ran through the possibilities and decided she meant the programming language. "Passable."

She pulled a second cigarette out of her pack, lit it using the one she was smoking, and held it out. "I need a second set of eyes." 

Later, when John finally got annoyed that Sherlock wasn't responding to his calls on the comms system, he found the two of them sitting in front of a small pile of cigarette butts in a room with opaque air, speaking in half-sentences and waving at a computer. "What is _wrong_ with you?" he snapped, grabbing the cigarette out of Sherlock's hand and stomping it out on the floor. "Leaving aside your lungs, you do realise you're going to break the computer with this nonsense?" He snatched Casey's cigarette as well.

"Hey!" she objected.

"Oh, sod off, you look about eighteen when you're smoking that thing." John grabbed the pack. "I'm flushing these. They said they're making grilled cheese for dinner. I've no clue what that is, but get your disgusting arses upstairs to eat it." He stomped out.

It was ninety minutes before Casey and Sherlock came up to find two sandwiches left, pointedly, on different tables, and John angrily reading a magazine at one of them.

***

The loud thump to the mattress woke John, though he didn't startle, much.  "Absolute cretins!" Sherlock said, pulling the pillow out from behind his head and hitting himself on the knees with it.  "And it isn't like I've been trying to be subtle."

"Wait, hold on, just waking up now," John said, and Sherlock turned towards him, as always surprised to realise that John was becoming a participant in the conversation.  "What are you trying to tell to whom?"

"I am _trying_ ," Sherlock said exasperatedly, "to alert American authorities to the presence of a major gun-smuggling ring, the discovery of which would lead inevitably to the arrest of the man who was Moriarty's second in command."

John thought for a minute. "Right," he said.  "You're an idiot."  He reached for his phone and checked the time.  Seven AM; not too early to presume senior staff were up.

"I don't see how I could have given them more evidence without actually presenting him to them with a bow on," Sherlock sulked.

"JHW-5578 to JJD-4587," John said into his comm.  "John, who's that lovely woman we've got in Washington who covers up our weapons acquisitions paper trails?"

There was a little pause.  "You mean Angie at the ATF?"

"That's the one.  Sherlock has some bad guys he wants to hand over to her.  Any chance she's on the internal chat system at the moment?"

"Yep, we were just talking about what the fuck we're gonna do with that tank.  Tell Sherlock to get on the system, I'll authorize him and her into a private chat line."

"Thanks, John," John said, and turned off his phone.  "Did it not occur to you," he said to Sherlock, "that despite the fact that we are currently fighting aliens, upwards of half the people who work on the broader project are bloody coppers?"

Sherlock blinked at him.

John lay back down.  "You are amazingly dense.  I'm going back to sleep."

Sherlock blinked again, then leaned in to kiss John remarkably fiercely for seven in the morning.  Then he pulled his laptop out from where his pillow had been, propped himself up, and opened it.  John fell back asleep to the rhythm of the keys.

***

John was going to return some of the experimental munitions to the engineering lab when his sixth sense for Sherlock in proximity to idiocy spiked. He backed up and looked into the lab he had just passed. In it, Casey and Sherlock were sitting silently, staring at what he was guessing was a disassembled laptop. 

"Oi," he said, standing in the doorframe with his arms crossed.

Sherlock, not looking up, rolled his eyes and pulled up his sleeve to display the nicotine patch stuck to his inner forearm.

"You too," John said in Casey's direction.

She raised her elbow to reveal the patch stuck under her arm, against her bicep.

"Very well," John said. "You look like a pair of bloody vultures."

He was simultaneously flipped off in both British and American. 

"Excellent," he said, and went back down the hall to get rid of these bullets before they corroded.

***

"John, you two need anything from the supply run?" Jen said, sitting down at the dinner table where John was eating and Sherlock, Jamila, and Matt were arguing about protein folding.

"Can't come up with anything.  When are you going?" John and Sherlock weren't allowed to go on supply runs. John couldn't do an American accent, and Sherlock couldn't visit a Walmart without making a spectacle of himself.

"The sixth.  That's Tuesday."

It was Saturday now. John did basic math.  "Monday's Bonfire Night back home, then."

"What?" Sherlock said.

John rolled his eyes.  "Bonfire Night? Guy Fawkes Day? You were actually raised by British nationals within the borders of England, yes?"

Sherlock looked a little put out.  "We were never allowed to participate. Mummy disapproved of any expressed interest in fire."

Mummy was probably right about that one, John thought darkly.

"Wait, you mean like in _V for Vendetta_?" Matt asked.

"Er," John said.  "Well, yes, that drew on the Fawkes mythos, but it's a radical reinterpretation.  Really, most of the actual practice of it in the UK has lost the political ramifications--"

Isabel sat down.  "What are we talking about?"

"Monday's Guy Fawkes Day!" Matt said brightly.  "It's a British holiday about revolution and blowing things up!"

"Not really." John tried to intervene, but he could see his efforts failing.  "See, it's actually a counter-revolutionary holiday, and the bombers are the bad guys--"

"Like the fourth of July!" Isabel said excitedly.  "We have to do something about it!"

"Oh Christ," John said, and rubbed his hand over his eyes.

***

"Everything about this is historically inappropriate," John yelled as Ismael, Sherlock, and Jen piled more wood from the forest into the center of the snowy clearing.

"Loosen up!" Isabel shouted back.  "You aren't drunk enough yet." She poured more hot spiked cider into his mug and went to get another armload of wood.

"This isn't how it should go," John said, watching as Jamila set up the homemade fireworks that she and Sherlock had cobbled together from spare chemical byproducts in the lab.

"I've got the whatsit, the thing we burn," Matt said, carrying a vaguely humanoid form wearing a rubber alien mask out from the bunker.

"It's called the guy," John said pedantically.

"Do we have any more kerosene?" Sherlock asked, working out how to suspend the guy over the pile of wood.

"Everyone here needs a remedial course in British political history," John said, starting to get louder as he drank more cider.

"You weren't here when I had to explain about why we weren't having margaritas on May fifth," Monica said, refilling his mug again.  "Geeks have no cultural sensitivity."

"But, John! We get to blow things up! Deliberately!" Sherlock shouted from the top of the pyre.

"Please get down from there," John said weakly.

"Bet I can cheer you up," Wrong John said, stepping up beside them.  John looked over.  He was holding the prototype flame gun they had been working on, in the hope that they could use non-chemical means to reduce the capacity of the bugs in hand to hand combat.

"We've been testing that on the range," John said, unable to move his eyes from the weapon.  It was the size of the assault rifle he'd carried in Afghanistan, except it was fucking beautiful.

"Well, you know," Wrong John said.  "We need to know how it works in extreme temperatures.  And in less controlled atmospheric conditions.  And, you know.  Things."

John looked at the gun some more.  "So what you're saying is, this is for science."

"Oh, yeah," Wrong John said, passing it over.

John shouldered the weapon and sighted down the barrel.  "I fucking love science."

He sensed Sherlock at his shoulder, and cleared his throat.  "Everyone, get clear.  Between the experimental weapon and Sherlock's issues with impulse control around hydrocarbons, this might get out of hand."

"Do it!" shouted Jen and Bruce.

John took a deep breath, held it, and sighted onto the neck of the guy. As he exhaled, he pressed down on the trigger.

The straight beam of fire shot fifty feet across the clearing.  The guy went up with a kerosene whoosh, and the wood around it followed suit. The roar from the crowd was deafening.

As people whooped and hollered, Sherlock leaned in to whisper in John's ear. "John, we need to go inside right now."

"What?"  He was still a little high on the power of the gun.  Plus whatever they'd put in the cider.  They'd gotten potatoes to roast in the fire; he'd been looking forward to that bit, provided they didn't taste like lighter fluid.

"John," Sherlock said, and the desperation in his voice was a very particular one that John was coming to know well.  "We need to go inside _right this minute._ "

"Oh," John said.   "Um." He turned to Wrong John. "Would you mind holding this for a moment?"  He held out the beautiful flamethrower.

"Take your time," John smirked.

"Shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes," Sherlock said, as he hauled John back towards the bunker.

"Hang on, don't we get any afterglow?" John complained under his breath.

"My estimate accounted for afterglow,"Sherlock muttered, undoing his belt under his coat as the walked.

They made it back out in twenty five, in time for Sherlock to help Jamila with the fireworks.  John ate his potato, which only tasted a little of sulphur and kerosene.  It was his best Bonfire Night in decades.

***

The one thing he uniformly liked about America, Sherlock decided as he drank a terrifyingly massive cup of coffee, was the volume in which they served sweetened caffeinated beverages. He was ruminating on this and walking to the lab they'd restricted him to after the incident with plutonium when Casey turned the corner, surrounded by two of the security staff who were not named John, and were therefore not important. "Casey!" he said pleasantly. "I wanted to talk to you about the third subroutine in the transcription program. I've noticed lately that it has particular issues with Greek, and I think that--"

"Sherlock," one of the security idiots said. "Don't talk to her. She's under arrest."

"I think detained is more appropriate," she said.

They kept walking past him. Sherlock started walking backward to keep facing them. "Why is she arrested? Casey, what did you do?"

"I went AWOL, you idiot. Also I stole a helicopter."

"We have a helicopter?"

"We do now," she said, smirking.

He examined them. She looked more exhausted than anything else, and more than a little triumphant, which meant that she didn't regret her actions, and also didn't think that the consequences would be terrible. The security guards were watchful, but not excessively so, and were neither restraining her or prepared to restrain her at a moment's notice. While her state of dishabille suggested that she wasn't concealing a weapon of any kind, both of these men had been present at their first sparring match in the gym, so they were certainly aware that she would be capable of holding her own if she wanted to make an escape attempt. Therefore, they did not truly think she was a threat, and this detention was at least partially symbolic, and probably served much the same function as his initial detention. "Ah," he said. "Well, see you in a few days, then." He turned away and took another sip of his coffee. 

***

"I have a theory," John said, in the dark, in their uncomfortable bed. 

"Is it worth listening to?" Sherlock asked. John had noticed, lately, that Sherlock was leaving his computer in the sitting room before he came to bed, and that most of the time his phone remained on the floor. It wasn't that he was sleeping more; he was just staring at John rather than attacking the internet all night long. It really must be the end of the world.

"It pertains to the emotional content of relationships between neurotypical human beings." John had tried to argue that his area of expertise was best labeled "feelings," but Sherlock had found this maddeningly imprecise. ("Cold is a _feeling_ , John.")

Sherlock grudgingly rolled over to look at John, and made a face that implied permission to continue. 

"There are two types of people here, in the bunker," he said quietly. "There are mad geniuses, and there are very smart sane people." Sherlock made another face, and John poked him in the arm. "No, actually, there isn't an idiot in the bunch, no matter what you might say." Sherlock's face switched back to the permission-to-continue version. "What I've realised, though, is that literally every couple down here consists of one mad genius and one smart sane person. It's not just a possible relationship pattern, it's the _only_ option."

Sherlock seemed to consider this. "Casey and Monica."

"Absolutely."

"Mulder and Scully."

"The man is far too gleeful about this whole apocalypse thing."

"Jen and Bruce."

"I've read her service file. She actually scares _me_ , Sherlock, and I sleep next to you."

Sherlock wrinkled his forehead. "Wait, Jamila and Ismael?"

"Leaving aside the fact that she's your best friend down here, which is suggestive of her sanity, did you see the performance she put on with the blowtorch last week?" John stroked his arm. "I'm just saying. I think a large number of the people who work here are at the very limits of their ability to cope with the world, and they've latched onto some normal people desperately in order to survive. And this is how we're going to save the bloody world."

Sherlock contemplated this long enough that John nearly fell asleep before he said, quietly, "I have been thinking about the so-called romantic pairings in the bunker as well."

"What have you observed?" John said, blinking his eyes open.

"That of every couple here, we're the only ones who won't be in the same place the morning of." Sherlock swallowed, and the terror in his face was impossible to hide.

John curled his arms around him and pulled him close. "We'll be fine," he said into Sherlock's hair.

"Easy for you to say," Sherlock grumbled. "You're merely very smart." But John knew what he meant, and they lay curled there for a long time.

***

Mycroft wished, desperately, that they had actually installed that underground pneumatic transport system between his office and 10 Downing.  At moments like this, when alien spaceships surrounded the Earth and it was peak traffic as well, he really would have appreciated the time saved.

His mobile rang in his pocket, his personal one, the number for which only six people in the world had.  As one of them was sitting in the car across from him texting, another was dead, and a third had, in the words of his landlady, 'buggered off' to parts unknown, he was a bit at a loss.  This would be a terrible time for a call from Mummy. He pulled it out and answered.  "Mycroft Holmes here."

"Mycroft, it's John," said a pleasant voice over the line.  He could detect at least three kinds of distortion, and made a note on the pad on his lap for Anthea to see whether the ships were distorting cell phone signals worldwide, or if this were coincidence.

"John, so lovely to hear from you," he said automatically.  "Unfortunately, I'm in a rush at the moment, crucial meeting.  If I could call you back--"

"Yes, well," John interrupted.  "It's just that I'm standing next to your surprisingly not-dead brother, in an underground bunker in the Rocky Mountains, about to be a part of the military insurgency against those alarming triangular things hanging in the sky.  So I don't think you particularly want to call me back later.  I think, in fact. you might want to put me on speaker."

Mycroft paused for a long moment, and took a deep breath.  TRACE THIS CALL he wrote on the pad on his knee, upside down so she could read it.   The car pulled into Downing Street.   "If I could just put you on hold for a moment, John, while I get the Prime Minister on the line."

"I can hold," John said.

***

Sherlock would never admit it out loud.  But he was impressed to find that, arousing as he found both Captain Watson Voice and Captain Watson Marksmanship, the appearance of Captain Watson in full combat gear with a submachine rifle full of anti-alien bullets was actually _better._. There had been a lot of kissing when John dressed this morning.

Although he didn't like having to spend the whole battle in the shelter.  There were _children_ here.  It was unpleasant.  And loud.

"He'll be fine," Jamila said, sitting down next to him.  "You want to play cards?"

Sherlock did not dignify that with a response.  She stayed next to him, though.  He rather liked the silent company.

He did not let himself analyze when a medical team rushed out, breaking the seal of the door, and closed it behind them.

At some point, Matt ended up on his other side, holding his hand. This confused him, but he didn't bother removing it.  He was too busy not thinking.

He lost track of time, and Matt had to jostle him.  "Sherlock.  John's in the infirmary."  His eyes shot open.  "Not like that," Matt assured him.  "Doing doctor stuff.  But if you want to sneak out--"

He wasn't quite certain how he got to his feet that fast.  It didn't take long to reprogram the door, and he didn't bother to deduce what the scorch mark meant.  There were fifty-one stairs between the shelter level and the science level, and he didn't think his feet touched more than a dozen of them.

There were some beds on one side of the room, but he didn't bother with them, because John wasn't there. He was on the other side, bent over Isabel's hands, which were red and blistered and propped up under a magnifier.  Sherlock skidded across the room and threw his arms around John from behind.

"Sherlock," John said.  "Don't grab people doing field surgery."

Sherlock didn't talk.  He just buried his head in John's shoulder.

"I'm glad you're not eaten by aliens too," John said calmly.

Isabel winced and sniffed as John dug around in her skin for a long shard of metal.  "I never want to be in the line of fire for an exploding server tower again."

Sherlock looked up, and noticed that she was silently crying.  "Isabel, are you upset about the tower?" he asked, genuinely mystified.  "I'm fairly sure I can help you rebuild it, but it rather seems like its served its purpose at this point."

She looked at him in total confusion.

"She's crying because her hands hurt, Sherlock," John said patiently.  "I need to get more lidocaine."

Sherlock considered this.  "I'll do the lidocaine bit, so you can keep working."

"You have absolutely no medical training," John said.

"I'm a genius and a junkie, it can't be that difficult," Sherlock said, and went to find the needles.

"Raised by wolves," John muttered.

***

Mycroft arranged it so nobody got knighted.

Mrs. Hudson wept when they walked out of customs at Heathrow, holding hands.

Lestrade punched Sherlock quite hard on the arm when he saw him.  Sherlock was surprised it wasn't the face.

Molly named her new kitten Tony, and John had to explain why this was a reference to them.  The explanation involved some truly execrable films. 

The apartment had been dusted.  Still, it echoed.  They sat quietly on the couch, stiff from disuse, and surveyed the life they hadn't had in nearly a year.

"Shall we go find some trouble?" John asked, after a minute.

"God, yes," Sherlock said.


End file.
